Federal support for school choice

"Education choice exercises a powerful pull on parents of school children" begins a report this week from the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings on expanding school choice.

Current types of school choice include residential (choosing a place of residence for a school), magnet schools and other forms of intra-district choice, inter-district choice, charter schools, school vouchers, and virtual (online) education. The report does not favor a particular model but instead advocates for parents to have "the maximum degree of choice among education programs and schools." In order to achieve this, the report recommends federal funding at the school district level and for virtual schooling to increase choice and competition. At the school district level, providing parents with information on schools based on performance is vital. The authors argue for federal aid for "a new generation of web-based tools to support informed choice by parents."

The U. S. Dept of Education (ED) currently offers College Navigator for post-secondary school choice. The report proposes a similar K-12 search engine called School Navigator. Users would enter their preferences and the School Navigator would provide lists of schools not only in the local district but all schools and education programs to which students are entitled to enroll, including charter schools, private schools, and virtual schools.


Expanding Choice in Elementary and Secondary Education: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education, Feb. 2010
      Report (pdf, 32pp/480kB)
      Executive Summary